[News] US seeking to have Venezuela declared "a state sponsor of terrorism."

Fri Mar 14 13:29:34 EDT 2008

Target Venezuela!
U.S. is now seeking to have Venezuela declared "a state sponsor of terrorism."

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8322

By Tom Burghardt

<http://www.globalresearch.ca>Global Research, March 13, 2008
<http://antifascist-calling.blogspot.com>Antifascist Calling...

Just days after president Hugo Chávez affirmed at 
the Rio Group summit that "our government only 
wants peace," the U.S. is now seeking to have 
Venezuela declared "a state sponsor of terrorism."

<http://www.mcclatchydc.com/world/story/29944.html>McClatchy 
News reported Monday,

The Bush administration has launched a 
preliminary legal inquiry that could land 
Venezuela on the U.S. list of nations that 
support terrorism, following reports of close 
Venezuelan links with Colombian rebels, a senior 
government official has confirmed. (Pablo 
Bachelet, "U.S. May Add Venezuela to List of 
Terrorist States," McClatchy Washington Bureau, Monday, March 10, 2008)

In other words, the U.S. State Department is 
using Uribe's "dodgy dossier" as a pretext for 
sanctions and embargoes against the Bolivarian 
republic. If implemented, such restrictions would 
severely limit the ability of U.S. firms to do 
business with Caracas while making it nearly 
impossible for Venezuela to export oil to the 
United States or import vital spare parts necessary to keep the economy going.

Under onerous rules now being considered, the 
Treasury Department's Office of Asset Control 
could potentially freeze Venezuelan financial 
assets in U.S. banks. Such aggressive action by 
the Bush administration would 
"<http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB8/ch26-01.htm>make 
the economy scream," the infamous order given by 
Richard M. Nixon to the CIA in the run-up to the 
violent putsch that overthrew Chile's 
democratically-elected socialist president, 
Salvador Allende, on September 11, 1973.

The McClatchy report continues,

The legal review comes after Colombia captured 
four computers belonging to a guerrilla leader in 
a March 1 raid into Ecuador. The documents 
suggest the Venezuelan government was in the 
process of providing $300 million to the 
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

As investigative journalist 
<http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/3254>Greg 
Palast reported after actually reviewing the 
documents, there is no mention whatsoever that 
the Venezuelan government was "in the process of 
providing $300 million to ... FARC."

Commenting on the crisis, U.S.-Venezuelan 
attorney 
<http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/3259>Eva Golinger wrote Tuesday,

Over the past year, the U.S. State Department has 
classified Venezuela as a nation "not 
collaborating" with either the "war on drugs" or 
the "war against terrorism". The Pentagon and the 
intelligence communities released reports earlier 
this year citing Venezuela as a "major threat to 
U.S. national security" and have proposed beefing 
up military presence in the region. The White 
House and Congress have increased USAID and 
National Endowment Funding to opposition groups 
in Venezuela in an effort to rebuild ailing 
conservatives that favor a U.S. agenda. 
International media portray Chávez as "public 
enemy #1" and the leader of a Latin American 
"axis of evil" that is threatening regional 
stability. ("The Peacemaker," Venezuela Analysis, Tuesday, March 11, 2008)

With this in mind, Bill Conroy at 
<http://www.narconews.com/Issue51/article3031.html>The 
Narco News Bulletin is reporting that CIA and 
Pentagon corporate cut-outs have exported at 
least 11 aircraft to Venezuela since 2003, four 
of which have subsequently been linked to cocaine 
planes seized by Mexican and Central American 
authorities. Conroy's extensive investigation 
into the mysterious aircraft and even dodgier 
companies have led him to conclude that the 
planes are linked "to an elaborate covert 
intelligence operation." Conroy reports:

The covert program, law enforcement sources 
contend, likely involves the CIA and components 
of Defense Department intelligence agencies, and 
is focused, in part, on penetrating, or even 
propping up, narco-trafficking groups in 
Venezuela. That country's outspoken leader, Hugo 
Chávez, is regularly demonized by U.S. 
policymakers for, among other things, supposedly 
allowing his country to become a haven for 
narco-traffickers. ("U.S. Cocaine-Plane Invasion 
Spooks Latin America," The Narco News Bulletin, March 11, 2008)

The Narco News investigation dovetails with one 
that Florida-based journalist 
<http://www.madcowprod.com/>Daniel Hopsicker has 
been reporting for nearly two years when the 
first plane was seized on the Yucatan peninsula 
by Mexican authorities in April 2006, carrying some 5.5. tons of cocaine.

Conroy and Hopsicker have both reported that the 
operation, code-named 
<http://www.narconews.com/Issue48/article2941.html>Mayan 
Express, appears to prioritize intelligence goals 
over law enforcement. Multi-ton loads of cocaine 
may have been allowed to flow freely into the 
United States as Washington's "drug warriors" 
looked the other way, a classic sign of a sanctioned intelligence operation.

Two of the aircraft identified in their reports, 
a Gulfstream II jet (tail number N987SA), which 
crashed in Mexico last September with a payload 
of some four tons of cocaine, and a Beech 200 
(N391SA) seized in Nicaragua "with the false tail 
number N168D," have been linked to the CIA's 
"extraordinary rendition" program, according to 
<http://www.dft.gov.uk/foi/responses/2006/jun/additionaleurocontrol/>Council 
of Europe investigators.

In a prior interview with Conroy, attorney Mark 
Conrad, "a former high-level supervisory U.S. 
Customs agent who has an extensive background in 
the intelligence world," told Narco News,

"Even though it looks as if you are unraveling 
odd connections you may be only seeing a small 
part of what is going on -- or you may be seeing 
what you are expected to see, missing something else.

"My guess -- and that is all that it is -- is 
that this has something to do with operations in 
Venezuela -- either to finance ops, or to divert 
attention from Agency ops in Venezuela to 
destabilize Chávez. ... It is not in the U.S. 
interests for Chávez to create another Cuba on 
some of the largest oil field reserves in the world." [emphasis added]

Before the December 2007 constitutional 
referendum which the Chávez government lost, 
Golinger reported that Venezuelan 
counterintelligence obtained a CIA memorandum 
from the U.S. Embassy which revealed extensive 
CIA/Pentagon plans to destabilize the country. 
Code-named "Operation Pliers," the memo was dated 
November 20, 2007. 
<http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/2914>Golinger wrote,

Operation Tenaza has the objective of encouraging 
an armed insurrection in Venezuela against the 
government of President Chávez that will justify 
an intervention of US forces, stationed on the 
military bases nearby in Curacao and Colombia. 
The Operation mentions two countries in code: as 
Blue and Green. These refer to Curacao and 
Colombia, where the US has operative, active and 
equipped bases that have been reinforced over the 
past year and a half in anticipation of a 
conflict with Venezuela. [emphasis added]

The document confirms that psychological 
operations are the CIA's best and most effective 
weapon to date against Venezuela, and it will 
continue its efforts to influence international 
public opinion regarding President Chávez and the situation in the country.

Operation Tenaza is a very alarming plan that 
aims to destabilize Venezuela and overthrow 
(again) its legitimate and democratic (and very 
popularly supported) president. The plan will 
fail, primarily because it has been discovered, 
but it must be denounced around the world as an 
unacceptable violation of Venezuela's 
sovereignty. ("CIA 'Operation Pliers' Uncovered 
in Venezuela," Venezuela Analysis, November 28, 2007)

While "Operation Pliers" may have failed back in 
December, the CIA has been ratcheting up tensions 
ever since, as the March 1 U.S.-Colombian attack 
on Ecuador clearly demonstrates. Since its failed 
April 2002 coup against the socialist government, 
the United States, working through a multitude of 
fronts--from the CIA, the American Center for 
International Labor Solidarity, the International 
Republican Institute to the National Endowment 
for Democracy--have poured millions of dollars 
into Venezuela, funding a broad campaign of subversion and violence.

Utilizing assets such as Súmate, Acción 
Democrática, Comando Nacional de la Resistencia 
and media outlets such as Globovisión, RCTV and 
the Interamerican Press Society, Washington and 
their far-right allies are planning a "Pinochet 
option" to topple the democratically-elected government of Hugo Chávez.

Despite on-going attacks by Colombian far-right 
narco-trafficking paramilitary gangs such as the 
Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC) and Águilas 
Negras (Black Eagles) in the Venezuelan state of 
Tachira, analysts believe that the U.S.-funded 
Plan Colombia is being used by the Bush and Uribe 
regimes as part of a military "pincer" movement against Venezuela.

Tachira's governor, Blanco la Cruz, told the 
Australian socialist journal, 
<http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2006/684/684p12b.htm>Green Left Weekly that,

"The zones that suffer this problem most 
intensely are [the area] south of Lake Maracaibo 
in Zulia, Alto Apure, and, obviously, Tachira. In 
these states, the paramilitaries, helped by the 
Colombian government, have taken control of 
various areas, buying up farms with the money 
from extortion, kidnapping and, principally, 
drug-dealing." (Jim McIlroy & Coral Wynter, 
"Venezuela: Guns, Drugs and Thugs: The threat 
from Plan Colombia, Number 684, September 20, 2006)

If the United States determines that Venezuela 
"has ... crossed the threshold of state sponsor 
of terror," according to an "unnamed official" 
cited by McClatchy News, full-blown U.S. 
sanctions would usher in a state of savage 
economic warfare as a prelude to a U.S. invasion 
and occupation of Venezuela and its strategic petroleum resources.

Additional documentation of U.S. destabilization 
operations against Venezuela can be found at 
<http://www.venezuelafoia.info/english.html>Venezuelafoia.info

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© Copyright Tom Burghardt, 
<http://antifascist-calling.blogspot.com>Antifascist Calling..., 2008

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